Wednesday was day two of official testimony from state-called witnesses in the trial of a Mulberry Grove man charged with the murder of a Brownstown man in September of 2017. The state’s case against 71-year old David Leroy Bright of Mulberry Grove who is charged in the death of James Skinner continued on Wednesday with the majority of testimony heard from Illinois State Police Sergeant Andrew Smith who works with Zone 8 Investigations and assisted ISP Special Agent Jeff Kline with the investigation into the Skinner murder. Smith testified that early in the investigation, he and Kline were drawn to the missed call log on Skinner’s phone as there were 12 phone calls made in succession over the hour and a half leading up to the estimated time of death of Skinner. Smith stated that they issued a subpoena to AT&T which gave them the owner of the phone number which came back as David Leroy Bright. They then secured a search warrant for AT&T to get more extensive information including call information and a Network Data Entry Location Report. Fayette County States Attorney Josh Morrison published a DVD of maps to the jury and court made by Smith that showed 12 different data entry point locations of Bright’s phone on the date of the murder, September 17, 2017. The location points begin at Bright’s home north of Mulberry Grove and include four points in close proximity to Skinner’s residence and later in the Greenville area, the Florissant, Missouri area and the Germantown, Illinois area. Morrison’s line of questioning and reference to certain phone records was objected to by Public Defender William Starnes several times and led to two lengthy and one shorter sidebar conversations between the attorneys and Judge Kimberly Koester. During his cross examination, Starnes pressed Sergeant Smith as to why the 12 points on the map did not correlate to the 12 phones calls made to which Smith replied that each data entry location point could include more than one phone call and that he only marked different location points and did not put a point for each individual phone call. Starnes then pressed Smith as to why he chose each point shown as well as questioning what triggered a data entry point and was warned by Judge Koester several times during his line of questioning to allow Sergeant Smith to answer the question without Starnes interrupting. Starnes’ questioning also centered on there being four different location points near Skinner’s residence. During States Attorney Morrison’s Re-Direct of Sergeant Smith, he questioned per Smith’s cell phone training how a phone picks a tower to correlate with as far as why there are the different data entry point locations to which Smith explained a phone doesn’t necessarily pick the closest tower, but the one with the best reception.
Following Smith’s testimony, the state called Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Holly Finney to the stand. Finney testified that she assisted with the investigation and helped conduct an interview at the Greenville Police Department with Melissa Watkins whose name had come up in an interview with Bright. Finney testified that Watkins drove a white Ford van to the GPD and gave permission for a search of the van. Finney says during a visual search, clothes in a basket were viewed in the van as well as a blood-like substance on a headrest and clothing. Finney says the van was then secured and transported to McDowell’s in Vandalia for processing.
The trial will now resume Thursday morning at 9am as the state continues to make its way through its witness list and lay out its case against Bright.
Bright is charged with two counts of murder for the September 2017 death of James Skinner of Brownstown. The two counts are Class M felonies, punishable by up to life in prison. Bright has been in the custody of the Fayette County Jail on $1 million bond since his arrest in January of 2018 and leading up to this week’s trial.
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